


A Mutual Addiction

by morethansky (amphitrite)



Series: Threads of A Life [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Implied Casual Sex, Interlude, M/M, Missing Scene, Unresolved Romantic Tension, War Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 23:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2406782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amphitrite/pseuds/morethansky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I should go,” Prowl says, but he doesn’t move.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“You should,” Chromedome says, watching him. He doesn’t shut the door, either.</i>
</p><p>They have a bad habit of ending up in the recharge slab every time Chromedome performs mnemosurgery at Prowl's behest. But when Chromedome announces that he's leaving for Kimia with his friend Rewind, Prowl struggles keep his cool.</p><p>This is a missing scene from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1870755">An Art and A Fortunate Accident</a> but should work as a standalone piece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mutual Addiction

**Author's Note:**

> **All you need to know:** At the height of the war, Chromedome and Rewind are the very best of friends who live together. A couple of years ago, Rewind found out about Chromedome doing mnemosurgery jobs for Prowl and made him promise to abstain from injecting as well as seeing Prowl, the only romantic partner from his past who he still remembers. But Chromedome has never been a bot of conviction.

> _“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”_  
>  — _Magical Thinking: True Stories_ , Augusten Burroughs

  


His duty done, the vital intelligence gleaned from the dead body, and his payment collected, Chromedome says, “All right, I’m heading back.”

“I’ll drive you back,” Prowl says quickly. Quicker than he would like. Chromedome gives him a suspicious look but doesn’t put up a fight. He never does.

Transforming and driving alongside him is natural, and for one precious, indulgent klik Prowl imagines they’re just Mechaforensics detectives again, back before the war, back before Orion Pax and Shockwave’s mad heist, before Prowl tried to leave the planet, before working at the Institute broke something in Chromedome—Tumbler—and he became so desperate for affection that he threw himself at every lousy bot who looked his way.

Once they arrive at Chromedome’s apartment door, Prowl hovers for a moment, reluctant to leave. Chromedome drives him up the wall on a good day, but he can’t deny that his old partner’s company provides a certain degree of comfort. Aside from that, Prowl also doesn’t think he will ever tire of looking at Chromedome. Throughout the millennia, the frame hasn’t changed drastically, and its lines and curves are still so familiar beneath his fingers.

“I should go,” Prowl says, but he doesn’t move.

“You should,” Chromedome says, watching him. He doesn’t shut the door, either.

Prowl thinks about all the ways this could go, all the different actions he could take. He could turn and leave, he could push Chromedome against the wall, he could punch Chromedome and get it out of his system, he could ask Chromedome for commitment, he could spill the bitter sadness he’s kept buried deep in his spark all these years. He could do any of a three hundred and twenty-one things. It’s what he does best, calculate statistics and probability and trajectories in order to figure out the best course of action. But there’s no use lying to himself: This scenario, oft experienced, only ever leads to one action. His door wings flare in paradoxical dread and anticipation.

Always shrewder than he lets on, Chromedome notices. “Or maybe you want to come in?” he says lowly, his visor dimming seductively. Prowl’s spark clenches, and he reaches for Chromedome’s waist.

After they overload, fans whirring furiously, Chromedome lies back on the recharge berth with his arms folded behind his head. “I’m leaving,” he says.

Prowl leans on his side, close but carefully not touching, and says, “Unless I’m mistaken, we are currently in your apartment, and you said we would be alone for a couple hours yet.”

“Don’t be a smartaft,” Chromedome says. “I’m leaving the planet.” He looks at Prowl. “I thought you should know.”

Panic. It’s panic he’s feeling, panic that’s clutching his spark. Annoyed, he tamps it down. “To go where?” he says, and immediately hates the static that has made its way into his speech.

“Kimia,” Chromedome says, as he procures a cloth from his subspace and begins the familiar task of buffing the fresh paint scuffs out from his plating. 

“What for?” Something in Prowl’s spark tightens painfully at the fact that Chromedome can never seem to wait to get rid of any sign of their interfacing. How much of it is shame and how much of it is fear of being discovered?

“I need something new. Something to clear my head.”

Prowl turns away, staring up at the ceiling. “No, you’re going because he wants you to.”

“Would it kill you to say his name? Rewind’s a bot like you and me, Prowl.”

The implication that he would discriminate based on size irritates Prowl deeply, especially coming from someone who knows him so well. Plenty of his agents come in all shapes and sizes. Chromedome’s skinny little friend has committed much greater offenses. And if Prowl’s being honest with himself, since Scattergun and the trauma inflicted upon Chromedome after that whole fiasco, he hasn’t had much reason to be more generous in his judgment of these ridiculous bots Chromedome insists on picking up.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he says. “What about work?”

“Brainstorm got me a job.”

“You have a job here,” Prowl points out.

Chromedome grimaces as he scrubs at a persistent spot of black on his chest and says, “No, I have you asking me for favors.”

Prowl scoffs and flickers his optics in annoyance. “The work you’re doing for us, it’s important. I . . . The Autobots need you.”

Chromedome frowns. “Prowl, you do realize I’m not the only Autobot mnemosurgeon on Cybertron. I know for a fact that I’m not even the only one currently employed by High Command.”

“You do the best work,” Prowl says stiffly. He doesn’t like the way this conversation is going, and immediately begins to calculate how best to steer it to something more palatable. Some way for him to deter Chromedome from really moving off-planet, because he belongs _here_.

Chromedome laughs darkly, self-deprecation radiant in every note. “The flattery usually comes before the overload.”

He doesn’t want to hear this any longer. Prowl rolls out of the berth. He narrows down his options of what will affect Chromedome the deepest.

“Don’t leave,” he says, his back to Chromedome. “I don’t want you to leave.”

Chromedome follows him to the front door, tucking the rag back into his subspace and putting his hands on his hips. “Don’t say slag like to me,” he says. “Not when I know you don’t mean it, you manipulative fragger.”

Prowl pushes the familiar switch, and the door slides open. Another try: “Your skills are needed here,” he says. There is a spot of red on Chromedome’s helm that he’s missed, and it leaves Prowl feeling inordinately smug.

“Look, you can’t talk me out of it,” Chromedome says. “I’m leaving, and that’s that.”

“Reconsider. Please.”

Chromedome’s shoulders slump. Shaking his head, he puts his hands up between them, in a twisted gesture of defeat and intentional partition.

“There’s nothing for me here,” he says, and Prowl tries not to hear the sorrow in his voice.

It doesn’t mean anything; it shouldn’t mean anything to him. He tries one last thing: “What about me?”

“What about you? You’ve made it clear that I’ve hurt you in some irreparable way, yet you can’t seem to let me go. You’re always going on about how well you know me—well, then you know I was never going to be content warming your recharge slab. I’m tired of being held at arm’s length. I’ve moved on, Prowl—and honestly . . . I can’t keep doing this. I promised Rewind. I want to keep that promise.”

To call what he feels in his spark hurt would be too simple. What he feels is a profound sadness and immeasurable regret that whatever could have been between them has been marred by innumerable misunderstandings and simmering resentment, worsened by dangerous memory wipes and hungry but wordless interface sessions . . . and countless other reasons why they have never been able to sustain a stable friendship, much less approach any form of elective kinship.

“What do you see in him?” Prowl blurts out. Sometimes he just can’t help himself. “He’s a minibot who has seen better days.”

Chromedome replies: “He’s wonderful and kind. He’s saved me, again and again. He is everything to me.”

It’s the kind of sentimental hyperbole Prowl loathes, and coming from Chromedome it feels like a thousand tiny knives burying itself in his spark.

“You’re a fool,” Prowl says, and he means it.

“I don’t care what you think, Prowl.”

That is an outright lie, and Prowl is not afraid to call Chromedome out on it, adding: “You’re making a terrible decision and you know it.”

“No, I’m finally making one that makes me happy.”

With disgust, Prowl realizes that he often forgets that Chromedome is of the idiotic, infuriating camp so self-centered that they think happiness is still worth striving for during a war that has left half of their planet in ruin. It’s in this moment that he begins to give up on the notion of convincing Chromedome to do the right thing and stay where he’s needed.

“But are you really going to be satisfied being number two? As you well know, Rewind’s Conjunx Endura was no slouch—Dominus Ambus’s work will be studied for millions of years to come.”

“ _Former_ Conjunx Endura,” Chromedome says quickly, his insecurity like a neon sign hanging around his neck. “And I’m well aware, thank you for that.”

“Look, you’re fooling yourself if you think he’ll ever return your misplaced feelings. You deserve better than second place, Tumbler.”

“Yeah? Like what? Y _ou_? Because you’ve always treated me so well. Get off the pedestal, Prowl. You’re just upset because once I leave the planet you’ll no longer have any sway over me.”

Prowl flinches, quickly reining in the urge to march back into Chromedome’s apartment to flip over his kitchen table. “Arrogance doesn’t suit you. We may have been close once, but all you are is an asset to me now.”

“Now who’s fooling themselves?”

Prowl laughs, devoid of humor. “Don’t mistake convenience for sentiment.”

He sees Chromedome’s little friend approach them, and feels a surge of satisfaction at the guilt that immediately grips Chromedome. Probably for good reason, too—the minibot looks furious. It’s almost comical.

“Give it some thought,” Prowl says. “You have my frequency. Just ping me, as usual.”

As he strides away, he wishes he felt as indifferent as he surely looks. The miserable truth is that after all these long years, Chromedome still has an infeasible hold on his spark. Prowl would never let anything real come of it, but he can’t deny that rationality often eludes him when it comes to his old partner. He has waged battle with some of the Decepticons’ most fearsome warriors and interrogated prisoners of war until they’re cowering in their own frames, but one suggestive look from Chromedome, and his unwavering resolve falters.

The minuscule part of him that has never stopped wishing things between them could have gone differently—that infinitesimal, foolish part of his spark he tucks away in a mental compartment and buries it deep down.

Because what’s truer than anything they will ever say to each other is this:

Sooner or later, when something once again goes awry in his sad little life, Chromedome will come crawling back to Prowl, optics full of engineered emptiness. Sorrowful beyond his own comprehension, he will spout nonsense like, “I’ve been so stupid,” and “You’re the only one I’ve ever loved.”

He always does.


End file.
